Stories from the world of Urban Play

[GiorgosPapavasileiou]

Hey Natalia!

About me:
My experience with LARP started a few years ago when we first introduced it to the Greek scene. Back then, Greece had a lot of RPG action but little to zero larp experience (except of some small long dead initiatives of 7-10 people), so there was a lot to build up. I personally started with (fantasy boffer larp) community building (still do, as we now have a living - active community of 100-120 people), experimenting on organizing (from simple game quests, to larger social and war events) and trying a dozen different approaches to see which worked best. After two years, when the hobby was stable, I turned to promoting it (through a newly found “LARP Project: Athens”) to the geek/fantasy/gamer communities of Greece. It went pretty well: nowadays we have TV appearances, we participate in all the available Cons, travel across the Balkans/Europe for experience, and are active in most greek settings that have sprung by now. I still organize thingies (i also turned to vampire larps, narrated one for two years), but I heavily try to keep it fresh and expanding.

About the urban part:
Athens is very peculiar city. I often say that it is a lake of chaos, with small edemic islands of order. Also a “living Necropolis”, and a city of undercover magick. And - to my perception - it pretty much is so. A massive amount of shops/buildings of the city center are long closed, unique architectural phenomena like “Στοές” (they are like dungeons running under and between city blocks - once used as a shopping hub) are abandoned and forgotten, and extremely vibrant/strangely magical areas are left unwalked. Yet we have a thriving amount of Greeks that love exploration, escape rooms, that are philosophicaly/theologicaly/occultisticaly curious, that adore the arts and fairy tails, that frequent thematic cafe/wine bars and are generally active in matters of city, I really believe in revivi-fying/remagi-fying Athens/greek cities through live games and I generally find it rather possible. I am just in the process of expanding my knowledge-pot before attempting it, since it will be a massively bigger project than the ones I am used to, and it will definately require a lot of community building (which always demands a part of your soul).

Questions:
I googled Journey/Ljubliana but it doesn’t really seem to pop up results. Can you direct me to somewhere that I could read some details, or, if possible, explain me a bit how that worked? Along with aaaany other advices, tips, ideas, views, and generally anything that you think that it could be used in a brand new city to work with - (they would be really really appreciated ^^ ).

Thank you for your time :3

[matteo_uguzzoni]

Hi Charis, your story is really funny and important as well!
I had a similar one once: I had to present our first project (CriticalCity Upload) to the public administration in Modena, I took my car from Milan and I started my 3 hours trip to go there: the trip was booooring, so on the highway I was rehearse my presentation by myself. If someone passed me along was probably seeing this person talking to himself and gesticulating as well, a strange scene.
Anyway, that was the only thing to do…so

When I’ve arrived in Modena I parked the car and on putting my backpack my laptop slipped out and crashed on the ground!
I was shocked…damn all this preparation and now this?
The thing was that it wasn’t working at all, I’ve tried everything, Macumba, Catholics prayers, battery, no battery, restart, but nothing, completely dead.

What could I do?
So I went in anyway, I explained the situation and I did the presentation without any slide, with this dead screen on my side…
but at that point without understanding it, I knew the entire presentation by heart so the result was amazing, actually it was better because I could focus the entire time on the eyes of the people in front of me.

You never know what technology -and the absence of it- can give to you

[matteo_uguzzoni]

Hi Nina!

I’m fascinated by theme parks and festivals, coming from urban planning and game design those are two things that really fascinated me.
I just visited Las Vegas and it has an enormous impact on me, maybe I will share some reflection in the next weeks.
Like @Kazz I’m also super interested on your dissertation!

[matteo_uguzzoni]

Hey Will, great to have you here!

Is HiddenCity this one?, I’m organizing a webinar on May 9th where I would love to talk about sustainability (moneyyy) would you love to participate as a speaker?
As Head of Experience I think that you could share some insights on how this kind of experience works and sustain themselves that could be interesting for other designers as well…thanks!

[matteo_uguzzoni]

Hello Marie Claire and bienvenue!

I visitedTAG lab in 2016, I met there Lynn Hughes, Gina and Ida Marie, it is an amazing space, I loved it! The result was an interview for my podcast that I had with Lynn about games, theater and learning experiences, very interesting!
How was your experience there? I’m curious on mapping different kind of opportunities that this kind of labs can offer to designer and artists. Btw I’m based in Baltimore at MICA GameLab, which is similar to TAG but more focused on teaching then researching I guess?

[matteo_uguzzoni]

Hello everyone, my name is Matteo Uguzzoni (he, his, him as a pronoun) and I’m an architect and a game designer from Italy, I’m currently based in Baltimore where I’m the Game Designer in Residence at the MICA GameLab.

In Trust in Play I’m responsible for the Nomad branch, (together with @natalia_skoczylas) which means that we are going to facilitate actions in different places around Europe and the world.

Other things that I’ve done are here (Urban Games Factory) and here (the Playcast - a podcast about Immersive Theater, Real life game and everything in between).

This year as Game Designer in residence gave me a lot of space to experiment, so I’m now play testing a tabletop game (based on Italo Calvino’s book Invisible Cities) and writing a short essay around the concept of “Immersive” (let’s talk about it: I have opinions!

I love design games because it is an incredible excuse to travel and meet great human beings, and this humans usually are trying to create incredible experiences for other people, so it’s like the most generous crowd in the planet?

I’m looking forward to meet you all, speaking of which I’m organizing a webinar around a topic that is key (in my experience) in the career of a Urban Game Designer: MONEY and sustainability, I’ve just posted my ideas here, any suggestion is appreciated.

Ciao!

[will]

Yeah it is. I was working for them when I came to Milan. Happy to talk about making money from commercial games. I can’t talk about specific financials but can definitely speak generally about getting to a profitable business model. You should also get Gwyn to talk. Is there a fee for speaking? How long do you want me to talk for?

[domx]

Hahaha I love the luxurious description of your misfortunes and the way you handled the whole situation!
Sometimes we just need to let go of the training wheels and ride on our own

This also reminds me of Bill Brown’s take on things and how we come across the things’ “essence” when they break; maybe we also come across our own re-defined “essence” after such an event!

Nice e-meeting you Matteo

[MGrelewski]

Thanks Kazz! Good facebook If have any questions I can explain in english.
p.s. Me and my dachshund are fascinated with Go Walkeez!

[BagelandBalloon]

Hello all!!!

This is Bagel and Balloon, a newly minted interactive theatre company Bagel is game designer Kai Oliver and Balloon is myself, theatre maker Francine Dulong. Part performance, part research, dedicated to open source, we are super interested in the relationship between participatory audiences, technology and live performance/performers. Our website home for all our projects is coming soon - super excited to meet others in this community and make things!

With much serendipity Kai (Bagel) and I (Balloon) met during a participatory theatre show run by Coney in London, Early Days of a Better Nation_emphasized text_ . Kai was doing a Game Design Masters at the National Film and Television School and interning with Coney. I was a newly arrived Canadian to London, pursuing a Masters in Applied Theatre at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and this was my first participatory/interactive theatre experience (I liked the show so much I did a placement as an Assitant Director for their tour a few months later! ) Kai asked me if my faction wanted to help his faction create a vaccine to save the fictitous country of Dacia in a whirlwind adventure of civil war and political upheavel. Now 4 years later we’re married!

Bagel has been into games of all sorts since childhood (http://kaioliver.co.uk/)and since writing my thesis on the resonances between Applied Theatre and Game Design I started a participatory theatre company centered around exploring our environment bloomingludus.com. We’ve cross-pollinated a lot of each other’s work, from a live board game Revolution, to an interactive tale of sustainable energy and fracking at Brighton Fringe, from community memorial and healing in the face of gun violence at Virgina Tech, to housing and gentrification across 3 continents, to a video game Jeremy Corbyn chasing down tax dodging Tories. We both really have a love for exploring the world through play and we want to create spaces where groups of people across age, race, background get together to discover new ways of being, and also just BE together. Now officially as Bagel and Balloon, our work seeks to invite audiences in, to imagine new possiblities, and perhaps repattern our world. As humans we have come to rely heavily on our cities and yet their potential that is constantly wasted or privatized - we’d like to be a force to turn that around.

Our current project, Acouscous, began at the Spatial Music Workshop run by ICAT last August - we’re playing with Pozyx tracking tech to make an interactive experience where audiences use objects to navigate and influence Spatial 360 sound. When we started, we had no idea what objects to play with…I looked up at the 100some speakers all the way up from ceiling to floor in the CUBE at ICAT and said ‘This space is so TALL! How can we take advantage of this verticality?’ Bagel responded ‘Helium Balloons!’

Looking forward to wherever these digital roads may take us,
Bagel (Kai) and Balloon (Francine)

[Kazz]

Thanks M! You’re both welcome to join our culture walks

[wzackw]

Wow, cool, I’d love to hear more about MICA GameLab some time!

[mitrzikl]

Hello wonderfully interesting pips!

I am Miljena Vučković, from Novi Sad, Serbia. My main interest is Space, so I work as spatial/scenic designer and event manager, looking forward to further expand my knowledge about connected interests including immersive theater and urban games.

During previous several years I worked as creator and organizer on projects various in style and scale - theatre plays, performances, movies, music videos, happenings, commercial events, festivals, spatial interventions and installations, etc. Coming from field of Architecture, I am interested in ways of use-, interaction and influence between people and public space.

Serve as vice-president and project manager in “Scenatoria” - organisation that promotes built heritage and builds audience for ambiental theatre through production of various performative forms in neglected and endangered monuments of culture. We did several successful interactive experiences and performative (educational) activities, and produced illustrated maps with “hidden heritage treasure” of Petrovaradin Fortress historical urban landscape.

In near future we plan to produce immersive theatre and urban game in this officially protected but dilapidated built heritage environment / former “Joseph Powder Storage” within Petrovaradin Fortress complex. We aspire to create more than theater and museal experience in this incredible place - XVIII century fortification - again exploring tactile understanding of surrounding, relationship between space and bodies, performers and audience. We would like to offer audience active, involving and multisensory physical experience.

Always imagining and playing with the idea of being in a game, and inspired by talk of Mirko Stojković about urban games (and many more immersive theatre creators), I hope to make something in which would I personally love to participate as audience / visitor.

Hope to join this group because I believe in learning by sharing and doing, and power of collaboration. I also consider constant education crucial for creative development.

I got so curious just reading what all of you do and aspire to, looking forward to continue!

[kategorman]

Hello!

I’m Kate Gorman, a writer and artist in Washington, DC working in fabric installations and audio storytelling where I explore experiences with language, the built and natural environment, and mental and emotional processes. I have a background as a theater performer, filmmaker, novelist, and quilter, and I enjoy using different media to make my work.

I’ve made several site-specific fictional audio walks using GPS-guided smartphone applications, and being able to use real life structures and surroundings to shape the narrative flow of stories is a fascinating process for me. One of the things I struggled with, however, was creating images that could capture some part of the experience of moving through space. I started by drawing maps, but the overhead perspective seemed wrong, since a person walking doesn’t actually see the place from that perspective. The part of traditional maps that did catch my attention were the symbols that marked both human-made and natural features. That led to me developing a set of symbols that created a visual score for the walk, with each section in the score showing turn-by-turn directions from the walker’s point of view, as well as narratively significant points of interest. (Here’s a link to those scores on my website - I’d love to know what you think!)

I’ve enjoyed reading about all the other projects everyone is doing, and I look forward to hearing more about them!

[LeaLeroy]

Hello everyone!

I’m Léa Leroy (they/them pronouns), a Franco-Singaporean Illustrator and Game Designer interested in urban game design and storytelling. I’m graduating from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) with a BFA in Illustration in about two weeks, so while I’m currently based in Baltimore I will be flying home to Singapore very soon.

For the past three years I’ve been a moderator for the MICA Urban Gaming Club, a club that’s focused on running and designing, you guessed it, Urban Games! In the fall we run a modified version of Humans Vs Zombies, and in the Spring we create our own Urban Game from scratch. Being in this club and getting to see our hard work come to life in our games has come to be the most meaningful thing I was able to experience at university, and it really ignited a passion for Urban Games in me!

Having such a small team to run these campus-wide games means that us team members had to do a bit of everything, so I came to embrace every aspect of it, from the designing of the game, to the creation of assets, to moderating and interacting with players, and to having to act as a non-player character that gave lore and story to the players. I’ve spent the last three years making these games in the context of my university campus, so I’m looking forward to creating these experiences in new and different environments.

I’m really stoked to see that there’s such a large community of people also interested in urban games, and I’m excited to get to know everyone better!

[jyow]

Hi all!

My name is Jenna Yow, and I’m a game designer and illustrator from the Washington, D.C. area! I’m currently a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), majoring in Game Design with a minor in Illustration. Most of what I create for my coursework is digital games, but I’ve been doing my best to do as many things as I can. I’m interested in using games and art as a force for positive change; interactive media is a powerful tool to help people escape reality for a little bit, and to help them reconsider the world they return to after playing. Urban games are especially important, as they utilize space in ways that many players never consider. I’m really interested in learning more about making and executing urban games!

For the past year I’ve been a moderator for my school’s Urban Gaming Club (along with @LeaLeroy and some other mods who I’m sure will be applying soon, haha). As to avoid completely rehashing Léa’s post, all I’ll say on that is that we make 1 week long game each semester and invite MICA students to play with us. The games we make contain elements of LARP and Nerf tag, and for many of our players it is a huge source of stress relief right before finals. We also serve to introduce a lot of our players to new ways to play; many of our players have never played urban games before, and our games serve as an important entry point for them!

Aside from the club, I was also enrolled in a unique course this semester called Games + Theatre, taught by our current game designer in residence @matteo_uguzzoni. Throughout the course, we learned about more styles of live action and urban games as well as being tasked to create our own unique experiences. During the semester we discussed urban games, interactive theatre, rituals, and everything in between.

Between the course and the club, I’ve learned a lot about urban games this year and I’m excited to learn even more. I’m so excited to see such a strong, passionate community and I can’t wait to be a part of it!

[tomo_kihara]

Hello All! My name is Tomo Kihara, originally from Tokyo and based now in Amsterdam
Fascinated to see all fellow urban game lovers.

I am passionate about making playful interventions that gives a new perspective on complex societal issues.

The pic I posted below is me doing Street Debating which is a way to earn money on the streets while creating discussion. It also serves as an alternative to begging for homeless people.

Since my works spans across multiple areas, I wear many hats as an interaction designer writing code, artist doing exhibitions and a researcher writing papers.

In a nut shell, I like to make playful things that changes things!

I now work as a freelance creative technologist for a public research institution called Waag and working on playful project in AI. There I made an urban escape room where you have to escape from AI-surveillance technology.

If you are ever nearby Amsterdam please come and play it!
Really excited to meet all of you here.

————

You can check out what I do from here : www.tomokihara.com

[tomo_kihara]

Wow Jyow, your game about Post Card from Earth looks fantastic!!!

[MarianvV]

Hi!

I’m Marian! I live in Groningen (the Netherlands). I consider myself a ‘social player’. I work in the field of democracy, participation and on various social issues (social benefits, poverty, quality of life in rural and urban areas etc.). I always try to incorporate play in my work, whenever possible, but find it sometimes hard to do. Especially when you don’t have co-workers that do not really trust in play, so to say.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Failed time and time again. But I’m extremely proud of one big project I’ve done, where 800 citizens of Groningen came together to talk about the future of their city. After a year we contacted some of the participants and asked them what they remember most, or what they gained out of that day, and some of them said: I’ve made friends that day. I did not expect that, but that still gives me goosebumps.

That’s what I believe play can do. Play can turn strangers into friends. To me, that’s pure magic.

Love to be part of this community!
Cheers,
Marian

[v7cky]

Hello everyone! This is Vicky from Greece, currently living and studying in the beautiful and almost always sunny Barcelona… I got my diploma in Architecture almost 2 years ago and in about one month I will be done with my master also. It is my ambition to become an architect working on interdisciplinary collaborative experimental processes, aimed at the field of social urban design.

Architecture has always –somehow- been a natural choice for me, yet what really interests me is –to quote Gandhi- how I could be part of the change that I want to see in the world. For that reason, there was always something bothering me while I was passing term after term all the design projects at Architecture School. Finally, I knew. I needed something more than a well-designed building project to be satisfied. I cared more about the impact of what an architect could do. For that reason I decided to examine this subject a little deeper and both my research thesis and dissertation involve this subject.

I have noticed that in the field of Architecture there are many factors of influence. Knowledge from other disciplines, as well as from other cultures, is what makes this field so intricate, but all the more interesting. Although my current cv satisfies my pursuits to some extend, my inquiring spirit can never stop getting challenged by new adventures. Thus, for the gap year between my graduation and my master, I searched for ways to make a scientific generalist out of me. I chose to enroll in some online courses with contents around politics, diplomacy, sociology, humanitarianism etc in order to gain transdisciplinary “literacy”. Moreover, over the past years I have been attending workshops, lectures and conventions in furtherance of learning more things over the subjects that concern me, working on relevant projects and -of course- meeting people that have the same interests as me and interchanging experiences and knowledge.

I am considered to be a highly motivated, diligent, well-organized, unconventional and vastly determined individual; I am certain to push through with the dedication I have always worked with to accomplish my goals. I do not know if I have the “typical” qualifications needed but I know that my passion and will is strong enough to overcome any unsuitability. I am characterized as an outgoing person with team-working and leadership qualities, social and people skills.

My master’s personal project is related to trust; I am interested to see how trust can be enhanced by simple games in public spaces, by doing “random” things that shake up our routine and comfort zone. If you are interested to see more, you can check my website: https://mdef.gitlab.io/vasiliki.simitopoulou/

Very pleased to meet all of you and looking forward to reading a lot interesting stories